This Washington Post comparison (via Mark Kleiman) of DiIulio's retraction to show-trial self-denunciations is spot-on. Thought for the day: DiIulio said his father taught him to apologize "on your knees, or not at all. In other words, whether completely culpable or not, and whether there are complicated mitigating if not exonerating motivations and circumstances or not, you do not express honest, heartfelt remorse for wrong by quibbling over how the wronged person or persons characterize it." DiIulio's father was a wise man-- though I don't think that facially absurd over-the-top apologies are what he had in mind. (You do not express honest, heartfelt remorse by coming across as if you're mocking those demanding an apology. One of the British papers did something like this not long ago; they repeated, verbatim, the demand for an apology that some offended celeb had included in the settlement of a libel suit, and it came across as so absurd as to be obviously insincere. Was covered in The Economist.)

But let's read that over again:

In other words, whether completely culpable or not, and whether there are complicated mitigating if not exonerating motivations and circumstances or not, you do not express honest, heartfelt remorse for wrong by quibbling over how the wronged person or persons characterize it.

Are you listening, Trent?